


VALLEY

by sleeptalker



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Abortion, F/M, Future, Gen, Guilt, Past, Past Abortion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 20:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5263298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeptalker/pseuds/sleeptalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>April was pregnant once before Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	VALLEY

**Author's Note:**

> warning: this contains dangerously under-informed guesses about american hospitals and Planned Parenthood, as well as a million medical technical inaccuracies. also, i haven't read this through in its entirety so there may be some mistakes join formatting or order of whatever, so feel free to point them out if you spot any glaring mistakes.
> 
> serious warning: This contains themes of abortion and extreme guilt throughout, so only read if you can handle all that.

_She finds a good OB-GYN situated at a clinic some 20 miles or so from their house. It comes highly recommended from Angela, one of the other career consultants from work, and although she feels bad about not telling him yet, she sets off on the sunny Saturday afternoon without her husband._

_(She gives some bullshit excuse about having an important meeting at work and tries to hide the guilt that's seeping out of her face, out of her entire body, from lying to him._

_Sometimes she feels like she lies to him too much.)_

_The drive takes a little longer than expected due to some crash on the highway. She drives past the victims a little slower than is probably necessary, sneaking glances at them through the window just to check that they're okay, not that it's any of her business. There's a mother clutching the hand of a little boy who doesn't seem injured, but is obviously shaken up about what happened, and the family is comforting him and April gets another fluttery feeling in her stomach and focuses her mind back on driving to make sure she doesn't throw up again._

_By the time she arrives it's still sunny, but something about the grey-brick building looming in front of her makes everything seem sharper, more defined, like someone took black markers and outlined every object under the sky, keeping it all separate and making sure nothing overlaps with anything else. She checks that she locked her car once more, even though from the first two times she's pretty sure she has, by now, and fiddles with the fabric at the end of her purple sleeves as she walks up and in, slowly, slowly, slowly._

_The receptionist is sickly sweet and guides her to the waiting area before telling her that Dr. Morrison will be able to see her in a couple of minutes and isn't she excited about all this? April somehow manages to formulate what must be a suitable response because the younger woman just smiles knowingly at her and finally, finally disappears._

_Dr. Morrison does in fact see her in exactly 2 minutes (she counted) and the balding man with kind eyes takes her down the corridor and into a room marked with his name, and suddenly everything is becoming real and she's not dreaming anymore, this is really happening, and she has to physically stop herself from crying as she sinks into the chair he prepared for her._

_She answers all his questions with an appropriate half-smile. He asks if she'll be okay with him doing the test right now, and it'll only take a minute so she really shouldn't worry, but she can feel herself nodding her head before he's even finished his speech so he shrugs and just begins._

_Her eyes are squeezed shut even though he instructed her to relax, and she can't help but think about Andy - oh God, what'll he think of this? They've not been living there for that long and he's unemployed, and she's not sure if her job alone can provide for... Whatever happens, and what if it's not even true? What if she comes home looking all sad and depressed and he figures out what happened? What if-_

_"April?" Dr. Morrison has a kind-but-confused smile on his face and she realises that he's been calling her name for the past minute. She matches his smile with a nervous one of her own, but it doesn't reach her eyes and she knows it._

_"Yes?"_

_"Congratulations. You're around eight weeks on."_

_The thoughts that have been whirring around her head suddenly just stop. Her jaw feels slack and she knows that her next words come out strangled: "I'm pregnant?"_

_"Yes." Dr. Morrison seems genuinely happy for her and she feels her eyes start to prickle with the promise of tears soon to fall. "I'd like to ask you a few questions now, if that's okay-"_

_"Yes." Andy should be here. Andy should be here, not at home, alone, probably eating leftover microwaved pizza in front of the TV on his own. This is about him too, she knows that as fact now, and he should be here. He deserves to be here._

_Dr. Morrison clears his throat and April notices absent-mindedly that he sounds like an old man when he does that. She wishes Andy were here so she could tell him; he would laugh at that. She needs his laughter right now._

_"Have you ever been sexually assaulted?"_

_"No."_

_"Are you, or have you ever been, a victim of domestic violence of any kind?"_

_She scoffs despite herself. "No."_

_"Do you, your partner, or you or your partner's close family relations have any physical, or mental disabilities of any kind?"_

_She hesitates and hopes the doctor doesn't pick up on it. "No."_

_"Are you currently involved with any hard drugs at the moment?"_

_"No."_

_"Last one," he says reassuringly. The perpetual smile on his face has morphed into an apologetic one. "Have you ever been pregnant before?"_

_Andy's not here. Andy should be here, but he's not. He's not, and right now she's truly very glad that he's not, because what he would be about to hear would definitely in fact kill him._

_She considers lying, but quickly decides that it wouldn't be worth it and as her new OB-GYN he probably should know, and it's not like Andy ever has to find out so she might as well just come out and say it._

_"Yes. Once."_

_Dr. Morrison takes one look at her and pauses, frowning, probably considering how to delicately word the next thing he has to ask. "Was - was the pregnancy carried out to completion?"_

_"No."_

* * *

She's 22. She's only 22 and she's been married for less than a year and that's why _this can't be happening to her,_ and she keeps that it mind as she counts back the days on her calendar, counts back the weeks, and finally counts back exactly one month and nineteen days since the last time she knew for certain that she was not pregnant.

The flimsy plastic grocery bag stares up at her from her bed and it only takes her a moment to give in, to grab the bag and speed-walk to the bathroom and select one at random because she can't even remember which ones she bought, and push down the toilet seat because Andy always forgets and do one of the grossest things she has ever had to do in her life.

She repeats the process for the second one, and leaves the two of them out together as she makes her way to the kitchen to chug a half-litre of orange juice so she can do the whole thing again for the last two.

The first thing she notices when she re-enters the bathroom is that the first two are definitely wrong. They're not showing the little figure that she wants and needs to see, so she averts her gaze from them as she completes the third one, then the fourth one with a little more difficulty, and the two that are already answering are still glaring at her so she just walks out the room and heads to the bedroom again and collapses down and lies on her back even though she prefers to lie on her stomach, just in case.

After a while she guesses it's probably been enough time for the tests to give their results, and so she pads back into the tiny bathroom and scans the first two, whose results haven't changed. The first, balanced precariously on the rim of the bathtub, presents a little pink plus sign; the second shows two clear lines down the middle. The latest give similar responses: the third has a 90s-style smiling face glaring up at her, and the fourth, a more high-tech, expensive one that she probably can't really afford, has the word _PREGNANT_ emblazoned across the middle strip and that's when she knows, that's when it all becomes real.

(Because before it was just suspicion and procrastination and yeah, maybe a little bit of fear. Now it's all hard edges and lines.)

Her first instinct is to bundle them all up in her hands, ignoring the fact that they're probably super gross because, duh, she had to pee on them, and drop them into the overflowing bin in the kitchen.

Her second instinct is to throw up.

(This can't be happening.)

(This was never meant to happen to her.)

* * *

_She walks down the grey-speckled corridor in a daze, clutching a telling pregnancy information pamphlet in one hand and the little card to schedule a new appointment with in the other. The receptionist flicks her perfectly curled hair over one shoulder and gives her a knowing smile as she types the next appointment into the database. It's two weeks from now, and Grace (as she has been identified by her nametag) asks if her partner will be coming for the next appointment, too. April gives some vague response and soon is walking out of the automatic sliding doors, out into the harsh blue outside._

_Before she knows it she's back on the highway, with no recollection of how she got there. She feels like she's definitely going to cry, but tries to tamp it down a little. There'll be time for crying later, but right now, she has to get home. She has to get home to Andy, and tell him the news, and watch his dumb face light up like a fire and remind him not to lift her off the ground. She has to get home and she has to look up when it is that you can tell people, and then she has to phone her family back in Pawnee - mom, dad, Natalie, Leslie, Ron. The list of people is endless._

_By the time she gets home it's almost dinnertime and Andy meets her at the door. He's holding a bunch of take-out leaflets in his hands like they're poker cards and his mouth opens like he's going to say something but she wraps her arms around his waist and buries her head in his chest and forgets, just for a minute._

* * *

She has to take care of this.

She's pregnant. She's pregnant and she's only 22 and she's coming to terms with that, now, because if she didn't then she couldn't take care of it and then where would she be?

Andy won't be home for a couple of hours. Tom invited him over to his creepy e720 warehouse-turned-hispter-art-exhibit to "talk business", which ~~probably~~ definitely means he'll be back half-drunk and laden down with at least a tonne of useless merchandise. For once she's grateful for the weasel-y idiot because it's buying her time.

Time is crucial right now. She knows she can't let it become... Whatever it'll become. A baby? Or, whatever they call it when they can't stop it anymore.

She knows it has to be stopped before that point, and preferably sooner rather than later.

As far as she knows there's only one Planned Parenthood in Pawnee, and it's all the way on the other side of town (she knows this only because she watched Orin throw fake blood on the protestors once when she was 18 and didn't have a parasitic lifeform growing in her stomach).

It won't be a long drive. If she goes just now, she'll probably be back before Andy, and then he never has to know. This doesn't have to go on and on, she can have it over and done with in the next few hours if she drives fast and resists the urge to argue with the protestors.

And she does consider that. She does.

But by the time Andy comes home all she's done is changed out of the skinny jeans she had on and into a pair of her husband's flannel boxers and switched the TV to some mundane channel about celebrities doing god-knows-what, and she's smiling at him and offering to take out the trash and knowing that this won't go away in the next few hours, but hoping it'll all go back to normal if she can just sleep.

(It doesn't, and Andy realises something's wrong. He's too nice to her, so she snaps out some response about having a bad argument with her dad and goes to bed without dinner.) (She lets herself cry, then. For years.)

* * *

_Andy makes dinner (by that, she means he heats up the ready-meal and sets it in front of the TV for her) and he's just being so nice that she doesn't want to disturb the moment, so she basically chickens out of telling him right away._

_(It's deja vu, sort of, but now it's different. She hopes it will be different. She needs it to be different.)_

_He makes conversation about what he did when he was away - walked Champion, had pizza, and watched the game on TV - and asks about her meeting. She quickly steers the conversation away from that topic, because to answer will require more lying to him, and she really, really doesn't want to do that._

_The food feels like cardboard in her mouth, and she finds it increasingly difficult to focus on whatever show is on. Her stomach is constantly fluttery and even though she knows there's no reason to at this time, she keeps worrying about what will happen after this. After the pregnancy, after she's told everyone, after even the birth. What then?_

_She doesn't doubt the fact that Andy will be able to handle everything. He's wanted kids for years and years - just recently, they got into what was potentially one of their worst arguments in recent years because she snapped at him for asking her about it once again. He's sort of between jobs at the moment, but since her promotion April's pretty much been earning enough for the both of them, plus the money coming in from renting out Ron's old cabin._

_And he's good with kids. Always has been. Johnny Karate may be over but even now he still finds it ridiculously easy to entertain kids._

_And April isn't really any of those things, but she's a fast learner and she thinks Andy will help her to learn as they go. So she just does it. Rips off the band-aid (though she's always thought that expression was pretty dumb.) She clatters down her plate and fork (the side of which she's been using as a knife, because she forgot to turn on the washing machine before leaving for work, and it's too late now) and gets it out, fast. "I lied about going to a meeting today."_

* * *

Planned Parenthood is at the other end of town, and it's not easy to think of a suitable way to get there.

The first reason, obviously, being the actual geography of the thing, but the second, the most important... Well.

It's the lying part that's the problem. And it's weird, just totally bizarre, really, because lying has pretty much been second nature for her since she was young. She's never had a problem with it, and she's good at it, too - she's told hundreds of lies in her short lifetime (22 years, oh God, she's only 22-) and gotten away with most of them. It's not a big deal. Usually.

 But the thing is-

Andy.

And it's not even like she's never lied to him before - she does, maybe on a daily basis. But that's just messing around. He understands her sarcasm around sixty percent of the time, now, and even when he doesn't, he usually gets it once she starts to laugh, so it's not like it's really a lie that she's telling him, it's a joke.

This is not a joke.  

The third reason, probably the second most daunting reason of the ones she's came up with so far, is that Pawnee has a very large population of adamant conservative old suburbanites, who apparently consider it a sin worthy of Hell to do... To do what she's going to do. (What she _has_ to do.)

The clinic sometimes sends people out to guide the clients inside, but she knows that'll only make it worse. She doesn't deserve a guide or a helper or whatever it is that they offer. Those are meant for the people who didn't mean it, who can't do it, really can't, who have good reasons. April just... Doesn't. She doesn't have any of those things. Yeah, she made a mistake. But it was her own fault. She's wasn't careful enough, or maybe she was too careful... She still doesn't know how it happened, not really, even though she's counted back the days and checked the calendar and tried hard to remember everything that they've done recently. Whatever happened was definitely not supposed to. And it was her fault, she knows it was, and she has to fix it, herself, and she doesn't need a pity parade to help her.

* * *

 

_"What do you mean?"_

_Andy slowly lowers the fork from his mouth, either forgetting to brush away the crumbs around his mouth or just not realising they're there at all. April resists the urge to reach out, to crack some dumb joke and let him laugh too loudly at her and just forget, forget about all of this._

_But that's not right._

_"I didn't actually go to a work meeting today." "_

_Yeah, I know, you said -But what -?" He shakes his head, shoots her a hurt sort of look: furrowed brow, downturned mouth, narrowed eyes. She has to look away._

_"I was at the doctor's."_

_"You're not-"_

_"I'm-"_

_"_ _You're not sick, are you?"_

_"No."_

_"Good."_

_"Yeah."_

_Why are they beating around the bush so much? (Another phrase she's always detested, ever since Tom made it into a gross innuendo over 8 years ago.) Why can't she just spit it out? It's not like he's going to be upset._

_She brushes at her eyes, even though the tears haven't started to fall, yet. Her cheeks are hot to touch. She doesn't even want to know how she's looking right now. "I was at the OB-GYN." She tries again. More specific this time. Maybe he'll understand, maybe she won't have to say the stupid words._

_He's still confused. "What-"_

_"I'm pregnant. I took a couple tests, but you're supposed to go get yourself checked to know for sure, and that's-"_

_"You're pregnant?" His face is almost unreadable, and his voice sounds almost as bland as hers._

_"Yeah."_

* * *

"You're a nurse, right?"

Ann looks up from her coffee, where she was apparently transfixed by the steam tumbling out into the cold air. "Huh?"

"I said, you're a nurse, right? Or did you get the sack already?"

"Look, April, if you're just here to-"

 "No. Sorry. I didn't... Whatever."

Ann's eyebrows shoot up, and she leans her elbows on the table. "Do you wanna sit?"

"When's Chris coming?" 

"He said he'll be about 10 minutes. He's got a meeting, or a workout, or something... I'm not really sure. But, you should definitely stay. Talk." She shoots her a look at the last word, eyes wide, like she knows what April's going to say next.

But she doesn't. There's no way that she does, because this, this thing, what she's about to talk about, isn't the type of thing that happens to people like April. 22-year-olds who have been married for less than a year and belong to a ghost town in the middle of nowhere and go to a dead-end office job every day.

"There's a medical... There's..." It's surprisingly difficult to just get out. "There's something wrong."

"What are you talking about?"

"I took, like, four tests. And I'm-" she flinches at the word, "- _late_. And-"

"Wait, you're not saying...?" She trails off, and April guesses that she's leaving the word to her, letting her choose whether it is said or left to be spoken about in vague terms alone. But it doesn't matter, not really. Not now that she knows, now that there's nothing left to do except wait for the chance to get rid of it.

"Yeah, I am. Pregnant, I mean."

Ann's mouth is just forming the beginning of a _C_ , a _congratulations!_  perhaps, but she falters at the last second, presumably because of the look of pure dread that's present on her companion's face at the moment. "I'm not sure what you want me to say." She finally says, slowly.

"I just - I need, I need help."

"Help what?"

"Help... Help get rid of it. Because, I can't - We're not, Andy isn't-"

"Does he know?"

April just shakes her head mutely.

Ann's frown deepens.

"I'm going to Planned Parenthood this week, on Thursday. It's on the other side of town, but I can take Andy's car and just tell him... Tell him whatever. And-"

"Wait, are you asking me to go with you?"

She winces, but for once, it's not the thought of being stuck in a car with Ann for a half hour. "Yes."

"Is it because of Andy?"

"No." She replies all too quickly. She can't let Ann think that any of this is his fault, when really, it's anything but.

"Protestors?"

"Uh, yeah. I guess."

Ann takes a slow, calculated sip of her coffee. "Of course I'll go with you."

She lets herself deflate a little, lets some of the nervous energy out. Sighs. "Thank you."

Things go back to being awkward a minute after that, so April makes some excuse to leave and go back to her desk. She enters through the fire escape, even though she's not really allowed to, but she just really doesn't want to see Andy's face right now.

* * *

_"Oh my God!"_

_A grin is slowly forming on his dumb face, although it could also be a snarl._

_"I'm pregnant." She says again, lamely, because apparently that's the only coherent thought in her head right now._

_"Oh my God!" He drops the plate, the fork, lets them fall to the floor. (They'll find out later that the plate is only a little chipped, but they won't find the fork again until two weeks later, when they have to remove it from Champion's mouth.)_

_Her mouth opens and closes but nothing comes out, just this weird gargling noise._

_Andy crawls over the couch to get to her, and wraps her in the biggest hug she's had in her life. He smells of ready-made lasagne and garlic bread, but his chest feels the same as it always does and she guesses that's what she needs right now._

_"I can't... April!" He's not even speaking now, everything's just coming out in a half-laugh, half-bark._

_(She can't complain.)_

_"We're gonna be parents." It sounds more like a question._

_"Yeah," she croaks, letting tears stream down her own stupid face, letting them smear away all her makeup, letting them make her look like a total clown. She doesn't care about any of that right now. "We are."_

_"When did you find out? Like, how far along are you? How long until-"_

_"I took a couple drugstore tests a few days ago, and I went to the OB-GYN today to get checked, to make sure." She wipes her eyes and nose with the cuff of her sleeve and doesn't think about how gross she's being. "Doctor said it's about 8 weeks on."_

_"Honey, this is amazing!" April could swear she sees tears in Andy's eyes, too. They fall back and melt into each other once again, a heaving, leaking mess._

* * *

Thursday can't come soon enough. Unfortunately, the passage of time has slowed down significantly since she first took the tests, and it's still only Tuesday. It's a cold, winter-y day with grey skies and sludgy grass and damp air, and she spends most of the day sleeping at her desk.

(She's been way more tired lately, since the tests. She chalks it up to early pregnancy symptoms, but when she looks back on these days later in her life, she'll realise it was something more serious.)

Ever since she told Ann, the woman's been shooting her sympathetic looks practically every two seconds. And, seriously, it's getting annoying. She almost wishes she hadn't told Ann, because now it's a secret kept just between the two of them, and she'd really rather not have anything to tie her to that she-demon.  

It's worse when Ann thinks she can't see her. When she's in the middle of a conversation with Ron or is nodding along to some instructions Leslie's giving her, and she catches her, just out the corner of her eye. Ann walking past, blatantly staring at her, looking like she's a kicked puppy who Ann just desperately wants to _help_.

God.

At the very least, Andy still doesn't know. He hasn't noticed that she's stopped drinking (yeah, she's getting rid of it, but somehow just knowing it's there is enough to put her off), or that she's been more distant than usual lately. It's Hell to not be able to talk to him, really talk to him; rant and rave about work and Ann and family and every problem under the sun.

And, yeah, it's only going to be for a couple more days, but she doesn't really trust herself not to slip up.

* * *

_"When can we tell people?"_

_"I don't know."_

_"Who'll we tell first?"_

_"Mom, dad, Leslie, Ron, Natalie, your mom, your brothers if we can get ahold of them..."_

_They're lying on couch with the TV on low, half-eaten dinner plates sitting forgotten on the table. Andy's kind of smashed between the couch and April, and April sort of feels like she's going to tumble onto the floor, but thankfully he has one arm wrapped delicately over her still-flat stomach and she knows she won't._

_"I still can't believe this is really happening."_

_"Me neither." She feels a smile play at her own lips._

_"When's the next meeting - appointment?"_

_"Two weeks."_

_"Can I come? Or is it, like, a female-only kinda deal?"_

_"No, it's not - I mean, you can come if you want. I think you're supposed to come, anyway." The atmosphere is becoming awkward and weird, and she's not really sure how to combat it. "There's something else you should know, though."_

_"What?"_

_"Um," she flounders, not knowing what to say. How do you tell your husband that you lied to him years ago about being at work when really you were aborting your unborn child? Andy's always wanted kids, and they almost had their chance, and she never told him, not once, not even a hint._

_"Is it about the baby?"_

_"No, no." She licks her lips, shrinks back into the battered-in old couch. His arm doesn't push down to meet her side again. "It's about the appointments."_

_"Is it the doctor? The rooms? Or, the, what's-the-word... Procedurals?"_

_(He's so good at this - giving her options. Sometimes her words don't match up to what she wants to say. He's spent ages finding out how to deal with her. He asks questions, allows her to just answer 'yes' or 'no'. It's easier that way.)_

_"No." She wiggles out from under his arm and sits up on the couch, her back to the armrest. Andy looks confused, but he follows suit until they're both sitting at either ends of the couch._

_She can't look him in the eye._

_"I've been pregnant before."_

* * *

"Ann, what the fuck?"

April folds her arms and wills angry tears not to fall. Ann promised - she _promised_ , for God's sake - that no one else would know. And now she's here picking her up and telling her that _Chris Traeger_ , of all people, is waiting for them in the car?

"I'm sorry, really I am. He insisted on coming with me. I said no, but..." She trails off once she sees her companion's face. It's hopeless.

"I just - I really don't want other people to know. It's not-" she cuts herself off, shaking her head, and doesn't finish her sentence.  

"I can ask him to leave? If I make it seem really urgent, he might get the message and go."

"No, he won't." It's Chris, after all. He doesn't give up on things.

(Unlike April.)

She sighs, runs her hands through her limp, greasy hair. She hasn't showered since finding out. She guesses she looks on the outside the same as she does on the inside: she's disgusting. But there's no point in dressing up for what she's about to do, no point in looking nice when afterwards she'll just come home and collapse in on herself.

(She's a dying star, right now. And she feels like she always has been, maybe.)

Ann swings her arms at her sides, looking around the house April shares with her ex-boyfriend. It's messy - there's stacks of paper in multiple corners, plastic bottles are scattered all over the living room, and every dish used in the past two weeks is lying, festering, next to the sink.

(Recycle is April's chore, and Andy never remembers to do the dishes unless she reminds him.)

A heavy sigh escapes her, and she checks the time on her phone. 12:32. Her appointment's at 1.

"Let's go."

"Are you sure?" Ann's look of confusion mixed with detached sympathy would usually irritate her, but right now she's too exhausted to even care.

"Yeah. It's not worth the hassle to make Chris leave. And I can't be late."

(The irony in the lasts sentence is almost painful.)

"Oh - okay."

April marches herself out the front door, into the grey late-November glare. She tries not to think about how she and Andy's shared car is sitting in the parking lot in their usual space, and how likely it is that Andy will find out that she is not, in fact, at a lunch meeting with Ron. The front door slams shut behind her, and she guesses Ann has followed her out.

"April Ludgate-Dwyer!" Chris calls from the rolled-down car window, and he's so upbeat she wants to throw up. He emphasises the _Dwyer_ , as he's been doing ever since her wedding. Usually, she pretends she doesn't care and hides a smile by turning away. Now, it's like a stab to the side.

She pulls the back door open and notices that it weighs about a hundred tonnes. The seatbelt feels like a snake, so she decides just to forego that. Whatever. If she dies, it's not like it'll make much difference, anyway.

Ann drives. Chris tries to make conversation, but soon realises April won't be replying to any of his questions anytime soon, so the car ride is mostly silent.

After about 10 minutes, Chris gets confused. "Hey, where are we heading to?"

"Um," is all Ann tells him. She catches April's eye in the mirror above the dash and gives her that detached sympathy once again, and she just can't take this right now, so she blurts it out.

"Planned Parenthood."

(Nothing matters.)

* * *

_"What do you mean, you've been pregnant before? Like, in high school? Oh! Do you have, like, a secret kid that I don't know about who you had to leave for adoption and grew up to be in the police force, fighting against badass criminals in NYC, and-"_

_He's getting so into it and it has to stop. He thinks this is fun, like some movie or dumb roleplaying game they play when there's nothing else to do. "No, Andy."_

_"Oh."_

_"Do you remember, like ten years ago, I went to a lunch meeting with Ron? It was the day you found that rock outside with the Z scratched into it, and you called me to tell me about it, and-"_

_"'Course I remember that! That was so awesome, it was like a secret message or something."_

_"And you remember that in the week or so before that, I was acting pretty weird?"_

_"You were sad all the time." He nods. "It sucked. I didn't know how to make you feel better."_

_"Yeah," she flicks her tongue out again. "But, I wasn't really at a meeting that day. I was taking care of... A situation. And I didn't tell you about it, because I knew you'd hate me and I really, really-" she feels hot liquid on her face and only then realises that she's crying. "I really, really couldn't deal with you hating me. And I didn't want to do it, believe me, but there wasn't any other way, there wasn't anything-"_

_"April," he says, tentatively reaching out his hand. The look on his face almost matches that of Ann's, all those years ago._

_Almost._

_"I was late. And, and I took a bunch of home tests." She gasps for air. "They all said the same thing, they all said..." Her breathing has become erratic, but she's not thinking of the breathing exercises she taught herself when she was thirteen, she's thinking of 2012 and curling up in a ball on top of their bed and crying until there's nothing left._

_"You were pregnant?"_

_"Yes."_

* * *

Chris can take a hint. It's one of the few things she can actually appreciate about him. He shuts up for the rest of the ride.

They turn a swift corner and there it is, the building, looming over the ground. It's grey and red-bricked and looks like it's trying to give the appearance of being friendly. April guesses that maybe to some people, it is; maybe it's the place where they made the best decision of their life, or maybe it's the place where they finally got the news they needed to hear.

To April, however, it's the faux-grin of a shark. Mouth wide open. Friendly, until it's not.

"Oh, shit!" It's probably the first time she's ever heard Ann swear. If it were in different circumstances, she'd be practically jumping for joy, deliriously happy in the knowledge that no, Ann Perkins is not perfect... But right now, she couldn't care less.  

She's more worried about the reason _why_ Ann had the little outburst.

There's a small crowd just outside the entrance doors - about thirty people, though maybe less; nothing, she assumes, like the usual weekend-crowds. Some of them are holding bold signs on sticks, the others are just standing around. She's hit with a fresh surge of panic, and she wonders why on Earth she didn't realise this before.

"Do you want us to walk you in?" It's Chris's tentative voice. He sounds smaller, somehow.

She doesn't reply. She wants to say, _yes, thank you_ or maybe _no, I'm gonna do this myself._ No words come out.

Ann seems to understand her silence - though there's no way she can, not ever, but she's glad of that, because she wouldn't even wish this experience on her worst enemy, and that includes Ann Perkins.

Chris opens the door for her, and she manages to drag her own dead body out the car. Her legs almost feel like they won't hold her weight, and she suddenly remembers all the videos of baby giraffes learning how to walk for the first time, how they struggle and stagger and fall. She used to think it was cute, but now she pities them.

The pro-lifers haven't realised they have a new victim, yet. Ann leads the way, and Chris is at her left side, and together they just walk right up there, right up to the group of people who definitely hate her guts right now, who think she's evil and want her to go to Hell.

The first one to notice is a younger woman - she can't be much older than April, and she briefly wonders if they might have attended the same high school. She points with an accusing finger and curls her lip in disgust and alerts the other wasps.

Ann yells something. Whether it's in support to April or against the mob, she can't be sure, because her ears are pretty much useless at the moment. She's not there. She's dead, or elsewhere, or trapped.

It's like a walk of shame. They reach the doors and pause, because Ann doesn't seem to want to open the door for her. She probably thinks it's something April has to do for herself, like an important life decision or whatever, and she guesses that she should be grateful for this but in the moment she just wants it all over with, and this is wasting time.

"Every human life is worth something!" The last pro-lifer approaches them, but keeps at a distance after Ann's glare. April looks up - she knows that voice.

The man standing before her isn't a wasp. He isn't the usual face-less non-person she associates with these types of things. He's carrying a Bible and wears a kind, though reprimanding, face.

He doesn't recognise her - they haven't met in person since she was still in high school, but she knows he still sees her mom, dad, and Natalie every Sunday. The Minister. She's known him since she was a kid.

He starts quoting some passage from his Bible - whatever, she's stopped listening. All of this is wasting time, and she needs to get this done as soon as possible so she can go back to work and resume her life and pretend none of this ever happened. "Let's go." It's her voice, but she can't be sure she actually said it.

* * *

_She tells him everything._

_She talks about finding out, about crying in the bedroom, about telling Ann and not her husband, about telling Chris and not her husband, about lying to her husband, about stoping a process which, if completed, would have made him happy._

_It's like dying, she thinks wildly, like the last breath. The last few words, when there's so much else you want to say, but time is running out. She's almost done. This is almost done._

_"I'm sorry." She finds herself saying this over and over during her confession, even though she knows it doesn't mean shit. She says it again, gasping, at the end, the very end. "I'm so sorry." Her face is wet and hot._

_Andy has sat in silence for the whole thing. His face is blank. His face is never blank. She can always read him like a book - it's one of the best things about him; that she never has to guess what he's thinking. She's bad at that with everyone else. Andy doesn't hide his feelings._

_But now, but now, but now._

_But now it's like he's pulled down the shutters in his mind, and she can't tell._

_"Please say something." Begging._

_He doesn't say anything, but he does, finally, move._

_His shaking hand reaches out. His long, calloused fingers brush her still-flat stomach. Just barely._

_(Sometimes when they're in bed and it's dark, she can't distinguish whose limbs are whose. They fuse together. Those nights, they're one and the same; they merge until all that's left is a big, vague blob of skin. With Andy's hand on her stomach, she feels that. She feels them fuse, she feels her skin stretch out until it meets his, she feels her limbs push into his until they're the same. She feels them become the human blob. They're the same person, for a moment.)_

_Her face is wet and so is Andy's and she doesn't know whose tears are whose anymore._

_"I'm so sorry." Why is she saying that? She already told herself not to._

_"I'm so sorry." There it is again._

_"I'm so sorry." Wait - she thinks, and her mouth is closed. The voice that's been speaking belongs to Andy._

_"I'm so sorry." He says again, and they unfuse._

_She is one person again._

* * *

She has to wait for her appointment and hates that but she's pretty thankful for the extra time to dry-heave into the toilets. Ann and Chris sit outside in hard plastic chairs, and they worry about her.

When she finally leaves the bathroom, a good ten minutes later, the doctor is already waiting.

"Sorry."

"It's okay," she's pretty, in a refined way. Long dark hair, but it's scraped back into a bun. Makeup, but not too much. She has a classic apologetic smile on her face.

"Are you gonna be okay?" It's Ann. April doesn't have to look at her face to know she's frowning.

"Yeah." For a second, she actually believes it. But then her feet are carrying her to the room indicated to her by the doctor and the truth sets back in.

She's aborting her baby. She might as well say it, because it's true. It's happening.

She's aborting her baby that Andy doesn't even know about. Andy would definitely be crushed if he knew what she was doing just now.

The doctor - Lisa, according to her nametag, shows her a couple of grainy pictures and diagrams and explains all too clearly the process that she is about to undergo. April nods along mutely.

It takes another eternity before they can actually begin.

When they do, she panics. It's stupid, but-

What if Andy can sense it?

What if he knows?

What if she comes home to a broken paper man, with suitcases by the door and tears flooding the bedroom?

What if-

She sits her eyes tight, wondering why she couldn't just be knocked out for this. Is this the punishment? Are the crowds outside just the preparation, is this the final fight?

"It's done." The pretty doctor says. April opens her eyes, slowly, and it takes her a minute to adjust to the brightness of the room. How long did it take? She can't tell.

* * *

_If this were just a story, something she read in one of the shitty romance novels she keeps under her bed and definitely doesn't read, then she would be able to honestly say the following: Andy completely forgave and understood her within the next few hours, they had a touching heart-to-heart talk, and probably also fell asleep together on the couch, wrapped in each others' arms._

_Or whatever._

_She should have known her life was never able to be anything like a fucking romance novel_ _._

 _(After a while of April sobbing on the place where flannel met his neck, Andy downed a beer from the fridge and headed off to bed, saying he had stomachache. He shot her a tense smile but didn't look back to the couch as he climbed the stairs. April had heard the door shut gently, and then the sound of the TV filled up the room again.)_

_Presently, she sits cross-legged on the floor, back to the couch, with a bowl of half-eaten Cheerios balanced precariously on one kneecap. Her laptop waits beside her - she had to use it to Google whether or not Cheerios or milk or coffee was bad for a baby._

_(It turns out that coffee is. But the others should be fine.)_

_It's 7am on the weekend, so she's not entirely sure why she's awake, but nevertheless the TV is back on and her breakfast has been made._

_Andy sleeps in the bedroom upstairs. Usually he wakes up before she does, but this morning is different._

_She's embarrassed to say that she's already checked her stomach three times since waking up, just to see if there's any difference yet._

_(Of course there isn't, but sometimes when she looks in the mirror and faces the wall she swears she can see a minute difference – swelling.)_

_But there's nothing there. She's not sure when Andy'll get up._

_She's not sure how he's going to be. He was so kind the previous night, so supportive, but she dropped a bombshell on him and she feels guilty._

_Sometimes she knows she's a shit wife. Sometimes she knows he deserves better._

_But she's selfish._

* * *

The pretty nurse offers to walk her back to the waiting room to _"see her friends"_ but she declines, even though she feels pretty nauseous. It's all a bit much to handle, yes, but she doesn't want to walk out with the nurse as her crutch.

This isn't a pity party. She can do things by herself.

(Except, sometimes she can't.)

Ann stands up as soon as April enters the room. She shoots her a sympathetic look, like, everything okay? So April nods so she won't ask again in the car.

Chris offers her his arm while they walk out the clinic again, and, wow, she managed to forget about the protesters. It's a smaller crowd now and they're easier to ignore, but she can't ignore the fact that they know what she has just done, and they hate her for it.

(Complete strangers are aware of what she has just done. Her husband is not.)

* * *

_On the day of her second appointment, things are a little better._

_It's been 2 weeks – 15 long days – but Andy is beginning to understand._

_They had a few long talks and April ended up telling him everything – not just the simple facts, but the mundane things, too, like how she met her old church Minister, and how she managed to hide the guilt for years afterwards. How a little bit of it seeped in almost every day._

_She waits for the question she most expects – does she regret it?_

_Because, yeah, she can talk about the guilt for hours on end._ _But the guilt revolves around Andy. Around lying to him for so many years, about keeping this huge secret._

_But things so far have been pretty normal, considering the circumstances._

_(And the answer? To the unspoken question, to the ultimatum of everything they've built over the years?_

_Yeah, maybe she's avoiding that.)_

* * *

"April!" His face lights up when she returns to her desk, and she just. Can't. Not. Right. Now.

She forces a smile that she guesses probably doesn’t look much unlike her usual unpracticed grin, dumps her bag on the desk.

"Hey, how was lunch?"

"What?" She forgets her own lie.

"Lunch, with Ron." His grin widens; stretches across his face. He probably thinks she's just pretending, just being silly.

"Good. Yeah." She pauses, and realises that she hasn't looked him in the eyes once since seeing him again.

It's not that unusual; she has huge problems with eye-contact and Andy knows that, Andy doesn't care about that; Andy supports her no matter what, and what has she done?

He hugs her and she's in his arms and she just made a huge life decision without telling him, a huge life decision that he really would've wanted some say in, surely, and she slips her arms around his back like a snake.

"I missed you." She hisses, although Andy might think of it as a whisper.

He runs a hand through her disgusting hair and kisses her, just briefly, and she tries not to cry and smiles against his lips despite herself.

(Because it would be wrong to say she had no choice in any of this. She chooses this, and it was the right choice, and Andy doesn't have to know.)  

* * *

_It rains in the afternoon._

_April silently curses the sky, because of-fucking-course it would be raining on a day like this, a day that already is going to be super awkward and uncomfortable and bleak, a day as important to her future as this one._

_Andy squeezes her hand when the engine gasps into silence. He shoots her a supportive smile, but his eyes are tired._

_When they're out the car and walking through the rows of empty spaces to the sidewalk, he takes her hand again, and soon enough they're standing right in front of the grey-brick building and it's like déjà vu only better._

_(And it makes her think of high school. She wishes they were in school together. She wishes that she was the girl who hung out with him at his lockers, who ran fast alongside him and laughed with her head tipped back and helped him pull the biggest senior prank in school history and who kissed him, chastely, under the bleachers when they were 15.)_

_"You ready?" Her voice cracks. She hadn't spoken in at least an hour, maybe._

_"Definitely."_

_They march, together, through the automatic doors and up to the reception desk. It's a different girl this time, though no less pretty – why are all the recpetionists so young and pretty and ugh – who prompts them to "take a seat, grab a leaflet."_

_Andy takes one of the leaflets on the desk and to April's surprise actually reads the whole thing. She watches him eyes flick left-right, left-right, up and down. There are a bunch of gross diagrams of the different stages of pregnancy dotted throughout, and he studies them carefully, too._

_He's probably taking this more seriously than she is._

_"Mrs. Ludgate-Dwyer?"_

* * *

Andy orders takeout from the shitty Chinese place down the road from work, and they eat it on the couch with Newlyweds on in the background.

She only now realises how hungry she is. She truly can't remember the last time she had a proper meal, and since she lied about going out with Ron, she didn't get to eat lunch with Andy.

"Y'okay, babe?" Andy asks suddenly, his mouth full of cardboard-flavoured noodles.

"Hmm?" She quickly spoons some of whatever-it-is-she-ordered into her mouth, just to have a reason not to talk for a minute. She chews slowly, and wonders what the Hell she could possibly say.  

She settles for, simply, "Yeah."

He nods; a quick, upward jerk. "Just, you've been acting kinda off lately."

"It's probably nothing."

"Yeah, maybe." He trains his eyes back to the screen and April relaxes, a little bit.

But he keeps one eye on her for the rest of the evening.

* * *

_"Ah, you must be Mr. Dwyer?"_

_"Yes. Andy. Or, Andrew. or-"_

_"This is my husband." April shoots Dr. Morrison a thin smile, and silently prompts Andy to stop talking, please._

_The doc asks her far too politely to lie down on the chair, just like last time, and assures her that everything will be okay, this is just a checkup._

_Andy holds her hand again, for probably the hundredth time this day, and he's grinning and it's finally, finally reaching his eyes._

_Dr. Morrison goes on about a bunch of medical stuff she doesn't care about, and he's almost done with his speech (and the appointment, apparently) when she interrupts him._

_"Can we see a scan? An ultrasound, or whatever?"_

_Andy lights up._

_Doc hesitantly agrees, after only a moment of dithering, and leads the two of them into a different room, down the corridor, all the while telling them that "_ he really shouldn't be doing this, it's not exactly protocol."

_She lies down again and he puts the cold jelly on again and she fights back an embarrassed blush again and after a lifetime of whirring and typing and waiting for the special computer operator to show up, the screen starts to brighten._

_"We're picking up a heartbeat," the new doctor says, "but I can't get visual scanning yet."_

_Morrison slides the metal block thing around on her stomach, over the slight bump, and for a wild second April wonders if maybe this is all a prank, maybe she isn't really pregnant and it's all been a medical mistake and this is just God punishing her for lying all these years._

_But then a grainy image appears on the screen and Andy lets out a bark of a laugh and, wow._

_Wow._

_There's a_ thing _on the screen, a grey blob, and now that she's really listening, she can hear the heartbeat, too. And – holy shit! - that grey blob is inside her. That grey blob is her baby, and it's Andy's, too, and in 7 and a half months it's gonna be a child. It's gonna be their child._

_"Oh, my God."_

* * *

It's been a year since she did what she did.

It's been a year since she stared into four strips of plastic that impacted her life in the most terrible way.

It's been a year since she first started lying to Andy, and;

It's been a year since she last felt truly honest.  

Ann and Chris have forgotten, or so it seems. Everyone is mostly swept up in the results of Leslie's campaigning, but she can't forget.

It isn't every day, though, and she guesses that only contributes to the guilt. Weeks can go past where she doesn't think about it, not even once. The bad days are becoming fewer and further apart and she knows she should be glad of that, but in a strange way she sort of misses them.

(At least when she feels guilty, she has that. Guilt. If she's guilty about it, then she can at least acknowledge what she did, but when she doesn't have to think about it, she forgets how terrible she is and she forgets this awful thing she has done.)

Andy doesn't bring up the topic of kids that often. He seems to have noticed that she has a weird, forced reaction to it – or at least, more forced than her usual reactions to things.

But he gets this strange, melancholic look about him whenever he's around kids, or when other people mention it, or whenever it gets awkwardly brought up by her parents.

She likes to think that maybe if _It_ happened now, instead of a year ago, or maybe a couple of years in the future, then she could handle it. They could handle it, together, and money would probably be tight for a while but it would all work out eventually, and her parents would help out because come on, they've been wanting this for years, and things would be alright.

Things are alright just now, without the burden of children.

Things are alright.

* * *

_It's been exactly 4 months and 18 days since the fateful day at the OB-GYN, and she's the size of the moon._

_(Maybe not the size of the moon. Andy assures her that she is definitely not the size of the moon, but he basically has to say that, so whatever.)_

_Most people know by now and they've already sorted out all the grown-up stuff like assigning a room for the nursery, and buying a bunch of childcare books, and taking classes, and thinking about names. And there are also a lot of perks to being and looking pregnant, as she's found out through a series of happy coincidences._

_(She hasn't waited in line for the bathroom in weeks.)_

_Andy seems happy about everything and sure, at the start it was hard and awkward and painful and they had to have lots of long, tedious adult conversations about everything, but she thinks he maybe forgives her. She thinks he maybe understands._

_And she's been talking to Ann and Chris a lot recently. Usually they catch up once every month or so (whether it's willingly or unwillingly on April's part is beside the point) but ever since they found out about the pregnancy she's been on the phone to them once a week, at least._

_(She still hates Ann, though. Totally.)_

_Her family are totally psyched about it all; probably a little more invested in it all than they really should be, considering how far away they are._

_She has to pee all the time and she eats more in a day than Andy does, even, and all of that sucks but somehow it's okay._

* * *

When they get to their new place in their new state in their new street, Andy insists on carrying her across the threshold, newly-wed style. It's an old, creepy place, bigger than the house in Pawnee but more suburban, more practical, more adult.

It's the type of place she feels like she should hate, but she's older now and has a real job and for whatever reason can accept that the positives outweigh the negatives, here.

They're eating crappy pizza on the floor of the room designated as the living-room when Andy gets that melancholic, lost look on his face and mentions absentmindedly how big the place is, how it's gonna seem pretty lonely being there all alone.  

"I guess." She shrugs it off like it means nothing, but the pizza turns dead-weight in her mouth. She swallows, carefully.

She thinks he'll continue, and if she's honest with herself, she wishes he would. It would give her a chance to really talk about this, how fucked-up she feels whenever she thinks about the past, and how hopeful when she thinks of the future.

But he doesn't. Just gives her a kicked-puppy look and goes back to chewing pizza.

* * *

_"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!" Leslie cries. For a second April worries that it's because she basically pissed all over the carpet and ugh, gross – but then she remembers she's literally pregnant and_ holy shit-

_"It's go-time!" Ben calls to Andy, who presently is in the other room, talking with Natalie about whatever, and he sprints through to join them immediately, knocking over a lamp in the process._

_"Oh, my God!"_

_"Andy, go get the hospital bag." Ben instructs, ever the leader._

_He does as he's told, though April can still hear him exclaiming to himself as he goes._

_Leslie, with the help of Natalie, manages to squeeze her into the car – she never noticed how completely huge she is, honestly – and they only have to wait about 2 minutes before Andy comes running out. The pain has been pretty bad the past couple of hours and it's getting worse, but although about 90% of her wants to cuss her husband out for allowing her to go through with this, the 10% of her that is actually rational right now has this sense of relief, of happiness, of hope._

_The car speeds off._

* * *

The symptoms are impossible to ignore, and she knows for sure that she's skipped a month.

She tries to tamp down the impending anxiety attacks because – well, because of what happened the last time she did this. It never really occurred to her that it could happen again.

She grabs probably 5 different boxes from the section, and taps her foot when the cashier takes too long scanning them. It's a little embarrassing, really, this sense of absolute urgency she has about her right now, but the cashier thankfully says nothing, just lets her pay and get the Hell out of there.

Within 20 minutes she's back home, in the upstairs toilet, and she has to take all 5 tests. She has to.

After about 3 of them goes down to the kitchen and chugs water until she thinks she might be ready again.

The ones that are already done sit on the rim of the bathtub, face-up, and they all say the same thing. Unlike the last time she did this, she actually takes the time to look at them, now, and although there's definitely a sense of panic inside her stomach, there's also a different feeling. Unlike the last time, where all she wanted to do was hide from her husband and move to Venezuela and maybe get a divorce, right now she sort of wants to call him in here and show him.

But she doesn't.

She calls a coworker instead, the irritatingly Ann-like one who never shuts up about her kid, and asks for her best recommendation.

Her OB-GYN appointment can't come soon enough.  

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> so this has been in production since early June


End file.
